Most restaurateurs would have figured both fate and Mother Nature were aligned against them and walked away.

Frank Guido, however, is different. His Port of Call restaurant, located on the Catskill Creek at the junction of the Hudson River, is positioned to offer diners incredible vistas of both waterways, as well as stunning views of Thomas Cole's beloved Catskills in the distance and Frederic Church's equally beloved Olana across the river.

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And despite the cost of renovations, Guido is not one to walk away. He reopened Port of Call last week.

Also the owner of Frank Guido's Little Italy in Midtown Kingston and Mariner's Harbor along the city's Rondout Creek waterfront, Guido figured the damage caused at his Catskill business by Tropical Storm Irene in August 2011 and Superstorm Sandy in October 2012 provided an opportunity to reinvent Port of Call.

"I've owned the building since 1998," Guido said. "We've had as little as six inches of water and as much as two-and-a-half feet of water in here before," he said.

"But Irene was different," he said. "We lost everything, everything ... the building, the docks, the equipment, the food, the liquor. Everything.

"Irene devastated the whole building. We had no choice. We couldn't save the building," Guido said.

"We knocked down the whole structure, put in new cement floors and walls, new sheetrock, new roof, new everything," he said. "It was a massive undertaking, but we reopened in time for summer 2012."

Guido said last summer was good for Port of Call and that he was just positioning the eatery for the fall season -- with a creative, affordable buffet that would ensure customers through the holidays and into the new year -- when the unimaginable happened.

"But," he said, "the walls held, the floors held, the roof held. The structure was fine." The docks, though, were swept away again, as were the tents on the deck.

"I had to replace all the windows and doors and rip out the sheetrock to put up new walls," Guido said of post-sandy repairs. "Once again, we disposed of all food items and liquor, even if it was sealed, according to health department regulations.

"But," Guido said, pointing to the walls, "we raised the electrical outlets so they weren't damaged - and of course replaced all the food items, liquor, stoves, refrigerators, air conditioning, inventory and computers."

Guido said he measured the damage and restoration costs not in thousands of dollars, but hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"This is where community and relationships count," Guido said. "We were closed for five months after Sandy. The Bank of Greene County stood behind me.

"And Greene County stood with me, providing low-interest loans. I couldn't have done it without either of them," he said. "Both know I employ close to 40 people, and those are dollars that stay in the county."

"As bad as Irene and Sandy were, no one was injured or lost their lives, and we can be grateful for that," Guido said.

"And what can I say? People love our food, and the one good thing about (the repairs after) Irene and Sandy is that I'm able to make Port of Call a year-round restaurant"

Guido said Port of Call, with its second-floor pavilion, can seat about 250 people in the summer. The capacity is about 100 during the rest of the year.

He said that due to the success of Little Italy, he has brought one of the Kingston eatery's chefs to Port of Call to infuse the menu with Italian flavor.